Do you have an English name? If so, you either picked your name yourself, or perhaps your English teacher helped you choose one. But I’ve noticed one thing: 【小题1】

One of my good friends calls herself Big Bird, like the role from the children’s TV show Sesame Street（芝麻街）. 【小题2】 In one of her classes, she had students with the names Tomato and Potato. In another class, she had two girls named Echo. Before I came to China, I had never met anyone with these names. 【小题3】 Sometimes it’s because someone famous chose the name first. For example, the famous writer San Mao chose Echo as her English name, encouraging many girls after her to choose it as well. Other times, they choose names that have the same meanings as their Chinese names. For many young learners, having a silly English name isn’t a big deal. 【小题4】 But those working in certain environments with local English speakers usually choose more special names.

【小题5】 So just have fun and come up with something creative. In fact, my favorite unusual English name comes from a girl named Shmily. It stands for “see how much I love you”. I think it's both interesting and moving at the same time.

One day, I happened to meet an Englishman in the street and soon we began to talk. As I was talking about how I was studying English, the foreigner seemed to be very surprised, gently shaking his head and saying, “You don’t say! You don’t say!” I was puzzled, and I thought, “Perhaps this isn’t a right thing to talk about.” Then I said to him, “Well, shall we talk about the Great Wall? Have you ever been there?”

“Certainly, everyone back home will laugh at me if I leave here without seeing it. The Great Wall is wonderful!” “Yes, it’s one of the wonders in the world. And people of many countries have come to visit it.” As I went on telling him more about it, he stopped me again, “You don’t say!” I couldn’t help asking, “Why do you ask me not to talk about it?”

“Well, I didn’t ask you to do so,” he answered, greatly surprised.

“Didn’t you say ‘You don’t say!’?” I asked again.

Hearing this, the foreigner laughed loudly. He began to explain. “‘You don’t say!’ means ‘Really?’ Perhaps you know little about English idioms (惯用语).”

Wow! How foolish I was! Since then I have been careful with English idioms.